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Easy all, bullies nary a gun, mates we'll lay 'em 'longside and board Aye, aye board it is!" Now being on my knees, I began to whisper in passionate prayer until, roused by a shambling step, I glanced up to find Resolution Day beside me. "What, d'ye pray, brother? 'Tis excellent well!" Said he, setting a musquetoon ready to hand and glancing at the primings of his pistols.
He never forgot that lumpy shadow which was the herd, traveling fast in dust that obscured the nearest stars. The shadow humped here and there as the cattle crowded forward at a shuffling half trot, the click awash of their shambling feet treading close on one another.
My next companion on the road was a poor bent-backed, shambling, idiotic youth, who was driving home two long-tailed sheep and a lamb, and who had just enough intelligence for this work. He kept at my side for a mile or two, flourishing a long stick over the backs of the sheep and uttering melancholy cries. His presence was not cheering, but I had to put up with it, for when I walked fast he ran.
It was a fine day to go to the circus at Frankfort, a fine day to do anything; the sort of day that must, somehow, turn out well. Claude backed the little Ford car out of its shed, ran it up to the horse-tank, and began to throw water on the mud-crusted wheels and windshield. While he was at work the two hired men, Dan and Jerry, came shambling down the hill to feed the stock.
Platitude, having what is vulgarly called a game leg, came shambling into the room; he was about thirty years of age, and about five feet three inches high; his face was of the colour of pepper, and nearly as rugged as a nutmeg grater; his hair was black; with his eyes he squinted, and grinned with his lips, which were very much apart, disclosing two very irregular rows of teeth; he was dressed in the true Levitical fashion, in a suit of spotless black, and a neckerchief of spotless white.
"Zu Befehl, Excellenz," he replied, and withdrew. In the hall below he sank into a chair, groaned and fumbled at the buttons of his boots. He was wearing them for the first time, and they fitted him as though they had been shrunk on to him. The porter, his waistcoat gaping, came shambling over to him. "You were saying," began the porter, "that the English." Herr Haase boiled over.
The stations usually stand alone, in some isolated spot on the wayside, and consist of a little log or frame tavern, a long shambling stable, innumerable odds and ends of cribs, store-houses, and outbuildings, forming a kind of court or stable-yard; a rickety medley of old carts and carioles lying about basking in the sun; a number of old white-headed men smoking their pipes, and leathery-faced women on household duties intent, with a score or so of little cotton-headed children running about over the manure pile in the neighborhood of the barn, to keep the pigs company; here and there a strapping lout of a boy swinging on a gate and whistling for his own amusement; while cows, sheep, goats, chickens, and other domestic animals and birds browse, nibble, and peck all over the yard in such a lazy and rural manner as would delight an artist.
Since the first flush of dawn the dismal squeal of wooden-wheeled ox-carts had hushed the bird songs all up and down El Camino Real, and the popping of the drivers' lashes, which punctuated their objurgations to the shambling oxen, told eloquently of haste.
Her white evening frock showed off the fair complexion and golden locks, and she carried herself with an erect, fearless mien which made a pleasant contrast to the stooping backs and shambling gait of most growing girls.
Six or eight men in "dusters," carrying parcels and handbags, projected themselves upon the solitary, rickety carry-all, so that Ransom could read his own fate, while the ruminating conductor of the vehicle, a lean, shambling citizen, with a long neck and a tuft on his chin, guessed that if he wanted to get to the hotel before dusk he would have to strike out.
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